Research project

Contraceptive Care in Community Health Settings

Community health centers are a critical source of primary and reproductive health care for low income women. Yet a strained workforce and competing demands often make it difficult for them to prioritize contraceptive care. ANSIRH’s Contraceptive Care in Community Health Settings project aims to develop and implement a curriculum to train community health center providers and staff on the latest contraceptive standards for adolescents and young women, primarily around intrauterine devices (IUDs) and contraceptive implants. This project ensures that clinicians and staff in community health settings are knowledgeable of the latest contraceptive standards, have the capacity to integrate contraceptive counseling into the routine medical visit, and are able to offer streamlined contraceptive visits.

This project is being implemented at community health centers within the Community Health Center Network (CHCN), which includes eight community health centers with sites across the Bay Area’s East Bay. To date, we have trained clinicians and staff from seven sites within the CHCN network.

Curriculum

The training curriculum for the Contraceptive Care in Community Health Settings project includes:

A two-hour didactic on importance of family planning services in community medicine, latest IUD and implant recommendations and how to integrate contraceptive services into a primary care

A two-hour hands-on IUD insertion training for clinicians

A two-hour hands-on implant insertion training for clinicians

Follow-up proctoring support for clinics interested in streamlining their practices and increasing access to IUDs and implants

Research

Through a mixed methods approach, this study aims to assess:

Barriers and supports to contraceptive care provision in community health settings

The role of training and proctoring in increasing efficacy of IUD and implant provision

How providers’ perceptions of patients’ needs and concerns about coercion affect contraceptive counseling

The effect of clinic protocols and patient decision-making on provision of the copper IUD as Emergency Contraception